I'm definitely using a broad view of causality, yes. Whether that's excessive or not I think depends on what you're trying to achieve. I think of it from the perspective of- would I like to encourage or discourage whatever is happening?
> If "changing the world" was as simple as spending a couple of days hacking up a simplistic browser game, a lot more people would do it.
That sorta implies (to me) that a lot of people are doing things that genuinely change the world, in the high-criteria sense. Is that really true, though? I think the world would definitely be a richer place if we had a lot more "simplistic browser games"- elegant, engaging, entertaining. I can't say in advance what that would lead to, but I'm sure a world with 100 different versions of 2048 (and I don't mean direct copies, but different games altogether that were addictive, compelling and fun in different ways) would be a relatively more interesting world.
And it'll only take a couple of days per person, no? So why isn't this already the case? Why aren't we awash in this stuff? Is it because most people are busy working on more meaningful things? (Objectively I think we can say things like ending malaria, improving education, project: water, etc are all 'more meaningful' in an anthropocentric sense... but is that what most people are working on?)
> If "changing the world" was as simple as spending a couple of days hacking up a simplistic browser game, a lot more people would do it.
That sorta implies (to me) that a lot of people are doing things that genuinely change the world, in the high-criteria sense. Is that really true, though? I think the world would definitely be a richer place if we had a lot more "simplistic browser games"- elegant, engaging, entertaining. I can't say in advance what that would lead to, but I'm sure a world with 100 different versions of 2048 (and I don't mean direct copies, but different games altogether that were addictive, compelling and fun in different ways) would be a relatively more interesting world.
And it'll only take a couple of days per person, no? So why isn't this already the case? Why aren't we awash in this stuff? Is it because most people are busy working on more meaningful things? (Objectively I think we can say things like ending malaria, improving education, project: water, etc are all 'more meaningful' in an anthropocentric sense... but is that what most people are working on?)
sorry for wordiness